How To Quickly Set Up A Trial Windows Server 2012 R2 Installation

Want to test out Windows Server 2012 R2 (and perhaps win an Xbox One in the process), but not sure where to start? Follow our simple install guide to get going.

For these instructions, we'll assume you're going to download the trial version onto a suitable test machine and then install it.

First, got to the trial version download site. You'll need to sign in with your Microsoft account and then download an installation manager, which will pull in the full installer. Note that this is around 4GB in size, so it will take a while to download.

Once the file has downloaded, you can right-click and mount it and then run the Setup.exe file to begin installation. If you want to install via a bootable USB stick onto a different machine, follow these instructions.

For the most part, installation is self-explanatory once you have chosen the version you want to install and pulled in any required patches. You can choose to upgrade if you're using a suitable version of Windows, or commence a fresh install. (Don't do this on a machine you haven't already backed up, obviously.)

You can also install Windows Server 2012 RM as a virtual machine image for testing, or run it on Windows Azure. So what are you waiting for? Check out it out now -- and don't forget to enter the competition.

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